Learning to Learn and the Navigation of Moods is written to explain the importance of cultivating a disposition, or mood, crucial to learning. In a Lean environment this is important, as the expectation is that we are learning daily from our work. Flores describes the way certain moods are destructive to learning and prevent us from engaging productively with our work and our colleagues.

Fortunately, moods need not be fixed. Flores provides a map for how we can cultivate our moods and the moods of others. This process starts with the assessments we make about a given situation. We can easily make assessments that are not grounded in reality. Expectations may not be considering available facts and assumptions might be made when more investigation is warranted. A number of factors can get in the way of making proper assessments, which in turn leads to frustration when reality contradicts your view of the world.

The book is perhaps the clearest written discussion of the importance of recognizing unproductive moods and cultivating productive moods available. While the book is focused on learning, the subject of cultivating moods is important to the broader field of Lean management and human relationships in the enterprise. The book should be included on the Lean leader’s reading list.